Where have they hidden The One True Church®?

23 Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!' do not believe it. 24For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25See, I have told you beforehand. 26So, if they say to you, 'Look, he is in the wilderness,' do not go out. If they say, 'Look, he is in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. (Mt 24:23-26).

Once upon a time, Gerry Matatics was a PCA pastor. From what I’ve read, he was a distinguished student.

But then he became disillusioned in Protestantism and began his quest to find The One True Church®. After converting to The One True Church® (i.e. the church of Rome), he once again became disillusioned. Due to the apostate papacy, he now had to locate the real One True Church® within the shell of the spurious One True Church®. He knew that the godless liberals in the hierarchy didn’t represent the One True Church®, yet a faithful remnant of the One True Church® could still be eked out amongst Traditionalist Catholics.

But recently he’s become disillusioned with Traditionalist Catholicism. Even sedevacantism is sullied by fatal impurities. See what he’s come to:

I've always kept very busy, but it's been insanely busy, without let-up, since Christmas. I've been working non-stop, round the clock -- usually skipping a night of sleep at least once a week to work right through the night and the following day -- on several different projects concurrently, with no time left for updating the website.

We need to be energetically inviting people aboard the Ark of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, just as Noah offered people refuge aboard the ark in his day. (See Genesis 6-7.) I mean of course the real Catholic Church, not the Vatican II counterfeit.

I have been stunned to discover by my in-depth research over the last two years into sacramental theology, moral theology, and canon law, that most such clergy today do NOT possess this mission and jurisdiction, and to discover that because such unauthorized clergy culpably violate God's law in these matters they are NOT authentically functioning to bring the graces they claim to bring to Catholics during the current crisis.

Most of what calls itself "the traditionalist movement," in other words, is in reality as much a "counterfeit" as is the Vatican II religion. This is a truly traumatic awakening for those of us Catholics who, disaffected with the Novus Ordo, have spent years living among the various tribes of the "traditionalist movement," but facts are facts. Stay tuned for many more essays from me on this painful problem in the coming weeks.

http://www.gerrymatatics.org/20100801.html

It’s hard to be the last Catholic on earth. To be the last man standing after the dust settles.

In once sense, Matatics is unintentionally comical to an outsider. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, maybe you’re looking in the wrong place. If you can’t find the answers you seek, may be you’re asking the wrong questions. He’s like a man with his back to a stream, dying of thirst.

It would be easy to dismiss him as a nutcase, but that misses the point. He represents the logical alternative to Protestantism. What’s his problem? Matatics is too good a Catholic for his own good. He takes the claims of Roman Catholicism too seriously to find a home in The One True Church®.

Unlike other converts to Rome, he is truly uncompromising. We keep reading Catholic epologists who assure us that Catholicism is The Answer! The antidote for all that’s allegedly deficient in Protestantism.

Well, when he first converted to Rome, he thought he found The Answer! But as he’s discovered over the years, The One True Church® is actually a skyscraper with many different doors on many different floors, with outer rooms leading to inner rooms, and side rooms, and backrooms. Which floor is the right floor to the right door to the right room?

Matatics goes from floor to floor and door to door, trying each door, to find The One True Church®. Year after year he goes from room to room in search of The One True Church®. Just when he thinks he finally found The One True Church®, and settles down for the night, he has nightmares. It turns out, on closer inspection, that this isn’t really The One True Church®, but just a crafty facsimile of The One True Church®.

Where did they hide The One True Church®? It must be behind one of these doors! But which one?

He’s a man who begins with a definition, then keeps searching for something somewhere that matches his definition. He begins with his Roman Catholic definition of The One True Church®, but after years of searching high and low, after many false leads, The One True Church® seems to be more elusive than ever. Just when he thinks he’s closing in, when the prize is almost in view, darned if it doesn’t turn out to be another false hope! It's enough to make a grown man cry!

In the meantime are all those lost sheep he left behind so many years ago when he made his escape from the City of Destruction. All them benighted “Bible Christians” who strayed from the path of The One True Church®.

Yet somehow they still find Jesus whenever they open their Bibles to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Yep. Jesus is still there–right where they found him the very last time they opened their Bibles to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He didn’t disappear when they went to make coffee. He’s been there all along.

Where is the church of Jesus? Where Jesus is. That’s where. Find Jesus, and you will find his church.